I Get Quoted Asking: What Are Dems Getting Out of Specter Switch?

Two nonpartisan PA politics sites interviewed me Monday and the coverage came out today.

Dan Hirschhorn at Pa2010 included a comment from me in a lengthy story today headlined "From the grassroots up, calls for a competitive Dem primary threaten to boil over":

...a grassroots infrastructure to hold Specter accountable to Democratic values—and perhaps eventually challenge him—has formed quickly. The Accountability Now PAC has been calling for a primary and laying the groundwork for helping to fund a challenger. At least two Facebook groups have been formed—”I support a real progressive against Arlen Specter” and “Keep Specter Honest.” And a Democratic activist has started Specter Watch, a blog that is closely monitoring the Senator’s every move.
“We’re talking about a state that President Obama won by 11 points,” said Ben Turner, who runs the blog. “This is not a state where you have to be timid if you’re a Democrat now. We know what the Republican base used to get out of [Specter]. They would get a year-and-a-half of votes from him before the primary. What is the Democratic Party going to get out of him?”

(Actually, the Republican base used to get more than that -- look at all the funding he brought to PA for "abstinence-only" sex education, to give one example.)

And Alex Roarty included this in today's PoliticsPA Daily Read:

PoliticsPA.com interviewed the founder of the blog Specter Watch, Ben Turner, on Monday. His bottom line: What does Specter support in the Democratic agenda?
“There's also the question of, ‘If he does support something now, how sure can we be a few weeks or months from now that he still will?’” Turner said in an interview over an instant messaging service. “He cosponsored EFCA, and then the Republican primary was approaching, so -- not. And now, stay tuned, I guess?”

(That instant messaging service, by the way, is Gmail Chat -- the address for me is specterwatch at gmail dot com.)